Combination ice/beverage dispensing machines dispense both ice and beverages. Such machines include a plurality of beverage dispensing valves connected to cooled supplies of beverages for dispensing beverages into a cup held below the valves. These dispensers also include an ice retaining bin having an ice dispensing mechanism for delivering ice on demand into the cup. A bin cover is removable from an upper opening to the ice bin to permit access to the bin. In the absence of an icemaker being associated with the ice/beverage dispenser, filling the bin with ice is accomplished by manually lifting and emptying buckets of ice into the bin.
To eliminate difficulties associated with manually filling an ice bin, an icemaker may be mounted above an ice/beverage dispenser to automatically make and introduce ice into the bin. However, the particular icemaker selected can be from one of a number of different manufacturers having various and differently dimensioned footprints that may or may not accommodate direct mounting of the icemaker on top of a given ice/beverage dispenser. In addition, because icemakers are manufactured as separate units from ice/beverage dispensers, the cost of the two units as separately manufactured and mechanically combined is greater than if an ice/beverage dispenser and an icemaker were manufactured as a single unit. Further, as cooling is required in an icemaker to form ice and in an ice/beverage dispenser to cool water for being dispensed into beverages, if a single mechanical cooling system were used for both functions, ice building and water chilling, the capabilities of a combined unit would be leveraged in a cost effective manner. One benefit would be the ability to downsize a cold plate of the ice/beverage dispenser, since water-chilling circuits could be eliminated from the cold plate, resulting in a more compact, less complicated and lower cost cold plate.
Chilling water for dispensing into beverages is typically accomplished in an ice/beverage dispenser by flowing water through a cold plate in heat exchange contact with ice produced by an icemaker. However, using an icemaker to produce ice that is then used to cool and take up heat from a cold plate is inefficient from a thermal and energy standpoint. A typical cube type icemaker evaporator has one side configured and dedicated to molding ice cubes while an opposite side contains refrigerant lines that produce the necessary cooling for removing heat from water flowing over the one side in order to freeze the water and build ice. This arrangement results in only half of the available surface area of the evaporator being used to exchange heat and produce ice. It would be desirable from an economic standpoint to combine an icemaker and an ice/beverage dispenser into a single unit and from a thermal and energy efficiency standpoint to use in such a combined unit the side of the evaporator opposite from the ice cube building side to chill water for use in dispensed beverages.
To maintain an adequate level of ice in an ice bin of an ice/beverage dispenser, according to conventional practice sensors are provided in the bin to detect the level of ice. The sensors generate signals that are indicative of the level and used to control operation of an icemaker in a manner to generally maintain the bin full of ice. So that the icemaker is not cycled excessively, two sensors are usually placed at different levels in the bin. A first sensor is located toward the top of the bin and is at a level such that when it is surrounded by ice the bin is full and a signal is developed by the sensor to turn off the icemaker. A second sensor is located below the first sensor and when it no longer is surrounded by ice it generates a signal to turn on the icemaker. The arrangement is such that when the bin is being filled, the icemaker is operated to introduce ice into the bin until the level of ice reaches the upper sensor, whereupon the upper sensor generates a signal to turn off the icemaker. As ice in the bin is depleted and the level of ice falls away from the upper sensor, the icemaker is not immediately turned on, but instead remains off until the level of ice falls below the lower sensor, whereupon the lower sensor generates a signal to turn on the icemaker. The icemaker then again builds ice and introduces it into the bin until the level of ice in the bin again reaches the upper sensor, whereupon the cycle is repeated. This arrangement works well to maintain the bin generally full of ice, but does not always yield ice of good quality, since at the end of a business day the bin will either be substantially full of ice or will be automatically fully filled with ice, which ice then deteriorates over time as it sits idle in the bin overnight. The result is a bin full of inferior quality ice that is dispensed to customers at the beginning of the next business day.
It would therefore be advantageous to fill of the bin of an ice/beverage dispenser with ice not necessarily in response to a sensed level of ice in the bin, but instead in response to and before an anticipated demand for ice. A benefit to matching the timing of ice production with the time of usage of ice is improved ice quality, since ice would be built just before it is expected to be used, not when it will simply sit idle in the bin and deteriorate over time.